For Cocktail Devotees, a Chance to Mix With History

By

Rebecca Rothbaum

May 2, 2012 2:48 pm ET

Dozens of cocktail nerds crowded into at a Brooklyn bar on Tuesday night for the chance to use a dead man’s drink shaker.

Not just any dead man, of course. The cocktail shaker in question belonged to Charles H. Baker Jr., who looms over the world of modern-day mixologists as a patron saint. His two-volume guide to eating and drinking, “The Gentleman’s Companion,” remains a cocktail gospel more than seven decades after it was first published.

St. John Frizell, owner of Ft. Defiance in Brooklyn’s Red Hook neighborhood, came into possession of Mr. Baker’s shaker, and he invited fellow enthusiasts to mix a drink before it is enshrined as a holy relic in a custom-made glass vitrine.

“It’s like playing a guitar that Keith Richards owned or driving one of Steve McQueen’s motorcycles,” said Damon Boelte, who heads the bar program at two Brooklyn restaurants, Frankies Spuntino and Prime Meats, and hosts a drinks-themed radio show. Mr. Boelte used the cocktail shaker to make a drink called Remember the Maine, Mr. Baker’s twist on a Manhattan.